


Ох, поля/ Oh, Sternen,

by 35grams (caxxe)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 02:22:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5112725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caxxe/pseuds/35grams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one could claim that voice. It belonged to everyone. No. It belonged to Levi alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ох, поля/ Oh, Sternen,

 The only sound that muted the ringing in his ears was the whistle of mortar shells.

Levi shivered so violently that his canteen clanged against his belt. He didn't remember the last time his feet had been dry. Rot. Rot. Rot. It echoed off the crumbling walls of the water-logged trenches. It was carved into the earth. Twice just that morning, he'd had to dig his fellow soldiers out of caved in junctions with only a _Быстрее_ or _Наконец то_ for his thanks. He rubbed his hands and prepared for the night shift.

But this wasn't like every other clammy and cloying crawl through labyrinthine walls. It was both those things, sure, but on that October evening, it was one more. A whistle rose among them, a birdlike thing if it wasn't so sustained, so deep, so lyrical. Soon, the whistle became a song, something rich and course and something Levi had never heard before, and something he wanted to hear again and again and again. Now in French, then in German, now in Russian, then in English, and each as fluent as the last. No one could claim that voice. It belonged to everyone. No. It belonged to Levi alone.

He studied the snorts and guffaws of his trench-mates the next day in his reverse-audition, but he could find no match. Weeks crawled and toes fell off but he could find no match.

Every few nights, the singing returned and the ringing in his ears lessened. He swore even the shells were fewer in number, as if not to interrupt. He sang of home, this man, of family, of warm beds and red meat, of stupid things like peace and truth. Sometimes, whole bands of soldiers joined in from both sides, seas of shattered throats putting on a show for the unfeeling stars.

They moved out in a week. Levi scrubbed his feet.

A night before the move, a shell hit their command center. There were no orders, no rules, no flags. There were only bodies. There was only red.

Levi pummeled his way through panic made flesh and mud to find their next in command with only a knife to his name, his gun long since choked on autumn rains. The rat-tat-tat of the Vickers gun drilled into his brain. His blood boiled in his ears as he tripped over a fallen soldier. Hurriedly, he knelt to help him up.

As his hand clasped him, as the man yelled “Thanks, friend,” over scores of rat-tat-tats, a nearby muzzle flash illuminated the eagle on his belt.

Levi's fist connected with his jaw. Every second of every month he'd spent crawling through mud and dirt and brains flared through his arms and all he could see was red, only red. The man kicked him off with a sharp hit to his lower back, but the job was done. He clutched at his chest but there were too many knife wounds to close, one for every toe Levi had lost this month alone.

Levi turned to run, but stilled at a quiet huff of laughter, one he wouldn't have even heard had a gun somewhere not jammed at that very moment. He felt something hit him as he stood dumb, felt iron in his bones, but he watched, could only watch as the man took a shuddering breath and began to sing.

“ _Ох, поля,_ ”

Levi fell on broken legs and crawled to him. He dragged his spilling body to him until he saw that the hair on his head that spilled over the spongy, trampled earth was not brown from birth but from grime if the golden reeds of his eyelashes had anything to say for it. Every breath he took rattled longer than the last.

“ _Oh, Sternen,_ ”

Levi stretched out his hand, whatever was left of it, as if in apology.

“ _Chante pour moi,_ ”

The man clasped it in his own, as if in forgiveness.

“ _Burn for me._ ”

 


End file.
